


Lifeboat

by Peril_in_Peace



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hazards of Space Travel, Space is cold, Survival, a pretty bad day, dubious science and engineering, tropey af, warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:37:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peril_in_Peace/pseuds/Peril_in_Peace
Summary: Peter looked her straight in the eye. “You would normally never hear me say this... but I really wish Rocket was here.”Gamora blinked. “We’re that screwed?”12 Days of Starmora - Day 2 - "Warmth"





	Lifeboat

**Author's Note:**

> Hell of a day, kids. Hell of a day. But here we go. :)

They both looked down at the spacesuit disc in Peter’s hand before looking at each other. For too long, neither of them said anything. His hands--his whole arms, really--were trembling from the cold, even through his gloves and a couple pairs of thick socks pulled on over them. Gamora ran her own sock-mittened hands over his arms and leaned her forehead toward his, misjudging her slight momentum in the weightlessness just enough that she nudged his fogged oxy-mask with hers.

Peter dropped his eyes back down to the one disc they’d found in a crate on Rocket’s workbench, wrapping it in both hands as if he was trying to keep it warm and safe too.

“Before we start doing that cliched thing, where we argue about why the other should get the suit, I’m gonna just go ahead and be that guy. The selfish one…”

 

* * *

 

Gamora had been asleep when the alarms started blaring.

On a more expensive, classier vessel, a proper voice would be repeating, as cheerfully and politely as possible, that the hull had been breached and to please perform emergency countermeasures.

On the _Milano_ , it was red warning lights and obnoxious klaxons. And, of course, the unmistakable hiss of atmosphere escaping.

The force field breach containment system worked for large openings, over structural weak points where the projectors were pre-installed, but for smaller leaks, the only way to find them was to manually hunt them down. Sure, internal diagnostics would point you in the right direction, and if you got lucky and it was in a sealable part of the ship, the computer would automatically lock any hatches it could to isolate the breach and give you time to find it… but that did not seem to be the case this time.

Little pockmarks and pokes through the hull were nothing new to spacers, though. The passive shielding always enveloping the ship managed to atomize most of the junk a vessel might run into--even a grain of sand could shoot through the unprotected skin of a ship like an old slug from the barrel of a gun.

But every once in awhile, they’d make port to find a hole in the outer hull that was a little too big or a little too deep for comfort. And once a year or three, there’d be a super fun scavenger hunt (at least that’s what Peter had told little Groot and later, a panicking Mantis) to find out where all the “fresh air” was “coming in from.”

He had a true gift for making things sound perfectly handleable when they were, in fact, quite serious.

Which was, perhaps, why Gamora’s heart dropped into her stomach when she got to the flight deck and saw the look on his face.

That Peter had abandoned his customary seat at the helm and had dropped into her usual station for the more complete diagnostic readouts was her first clue. His body language before he even saw her was tight and focused, expression all business. When he looked down at her coming up through the hatch, his eyes weren’t even _trying_ to make the situation out to be anything it wasn’t.

Gamora nodded her head in silent understanding and moved toward the emergency locker, pulling out a couple of clear oxy-masks. She handed one to Peter before putting one on herself and settling into his still-warm seat at the helm.

“I’m trying to track down the breach. See if you can find us someplace to set down if we have to,” Peter ordered distractedly.

“Did you call the _Quadrant_?” Gamora asked, while pulling up local charts.

“I wasn’t able to connect a realtime call. Sent a message.” Peter stood up and leaned over to grab a tablet, swiping the data from the station’s screen onto the handheld device.

“They’re at least a good hundred jumps away,” he shrugged, before looking over at her. “Think I found it, though. Be right back.”

He disappeared down the hatch.

The lights went out.

For a long, long moment, Gamora thought she went deaf. The engines stopped and the low, electronic hum of the ship’s systems that always vibrated in the background suddenly died.

All she could see was the slightest glow from Peter’s tablet through the open hatch in the floor, then a brighter one, as he must have grabbed a flashlight before moving deeper into the crew quarters, taking the light with him.

A few seconds later, the chemical red of the emergency tube lighting at the top of the bulkheads slowly began to brighten just enough to cast the bridge into stark shadows.

Beyond the front viewport, the stars were brighter than she could ever remember seeing them.

Then as silent as it was, in an instant the _Milano_ roared and shuddered with a painful noise that drilled through her bones and grew until she was sure her eardrums would simply pop from the pressure. She thought she heard Peter call her name as she checked the computer screen; she forgot too late it was dark and useless.

She _felt_ her vocal cords eek out a curse, but couldn’t hear it.

“... _\--EACH-- ...MANUAL STA--...”_

She _knew_ the words were being yelled to her from the deck below, but past the indescribable felt-noise in the cabin, Gamora could barely hear him.

The computer was down. Power was out. The breach must have blown something. Something important. Peter wanted her to start the containment generators manually. She knew this. She knew this… Where the hell…

Gamora scrambled to a panel near the life support controls and opened it up, running her hands over a series of manual switches in the near-dark. She flipped them all on, powering up the emergency system.

She held her breath and as the shuddering and silent-deafening rush finally stopped, she blew it out, trying to ignore the ringing left behind in her ears. Had Gamora been anyone else, her hands would have been shaking.

“Peter?” She shouted down the hatch.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s um… Okay, now. _-Ish_. Okay-ish,” he yelled back, trailing off a bit at the end.

Gamora was not exactly sure what that meant. She made her way down the ladder, dropping the last few steps to the deck below.

“Probably some kinda dense metal or crystal,” Peter was mumbling, realizing she was there, but studying his tablet. There was some blood on the back of his head. He must have been thrown around when the cabin decompressed. “Blew right through the passive, and ricocheted through the power plant. Came down and saw one of the back viewer panels cracked real bad. Then--”

He held up a hand and made an explosion gesture with his fingers and an accompanying _ppsshheww_ sound effect.

Sure enough, Gamora could see a missing window panel through the yellow shimmer of the containment field across a set of bulkhead girders.

“Can we fix it?” she asked.

Peter turned slowly, running a hand through his hair and dropping the tablet on the table. “Well… we got the _big_ hole covered up, but that pebble came in _some_ where and may have popped us in more than one spot. So, we’re probably still losing atmosphere and heat. Computer’s down, generator’s toast; so no engines, no atmo scrubbers, no diagnostics and no comms.”

“So…”

He looked her straight in the eye. “You would normally never hear me say this... but I really wish Rocket was here.”

Gamora blinked. “We’re _that_ screwed?”

Peter sucked his tongue and put his hands on his hips, trying to look confident and relaxed. “On the bright side, we did get a message out. It’ll get cold without power, but assuming nothing else goes wrong, we should be fine until the others get here. I mean we’ve got plenty of--”

He looked over at the panel of emergency suits. Gamora followed his gaze as his face fell.

They were on the other side of the yellow field.

“Fuck,” Peter swore quietly, deflating.

“Okay…” Gamora started, crossing her arms and leaning against the table. “What else do we have to work with?”

“I guess...” he started. “While we look for the entry breach, get together blankets and warm clothes. I’ll check Rocket’s room, see if there’s anything in there we can use. Grab the rest of the masks from the bridge, too.”

Gamora nodded and turned toward their room, halted by a light touch on her shoulder. “Be careful,” Peter said. “The gyro’s mechanical, but without the computer to run the timing, gravity will be the next to go."

She nodded again, and let his hand slip down her arm, clasping his fingertips with hers, before letting go.

 

* * *

 

“Before we start doing that cliched thing where we argue about why the other should get the suit, I’m gonna just go ahead and be that guy. The selfish one…”

Peter still didn’t look at her. His voice was wavering. Gamora assumed it was the cold. His whole body shuddered periodically, like he was being dunked in ice water and it was just... reacting. She impulsively tightened her grip on him, the motion gently wobbling them as they rotated slowly over the galley table.

“What?” Gamora asked. Peter shook his head.

“I’ve been here before, Gamora,” he said softly.  

“Peter--”

He looked at her squarely, then, eyes tight. “Yeah, I’m playing that card.”

She tried to stop it, but her face scrunched up under her mask. She dug her fingers into the thick layers wrapped around his arms.

“I can’t… again...” Peter whispered. “I honestly, truly, decided-a-long-time-ago, _know_ that I would rather die than be _stuck_ in this thing--” he turned the disc over in his hands. “And _watch_ …” he looked away from her again and shook his head. Gamora pulled him closer, swallowing back the arguments she wanted to make.

“I know it’s shitty and selfish, and you can hate me forever... but still... _Please_ don’t ask me to... Just…”

She dropped her head to his shoulder, wrapped one arm around him, and just silently nodded into the crook of his neck. She dug her free arm between them and held his hands, grasping futilely for the feel of his fingers through all the fabric between them.

“They're coming,” she said firmly.

“I know,” he agreed. She could hear in his voice that he _believed_ it. “And we’ll give them as much time as we can.”

“But realistically--”

“Realistically,” Peter stated. He looked around at the darkened compartment, the bits and pieces of their lives floating around them, condensate already starting to visibly freeze along the edges of the bulkheads. She knew he’d have his arms out gesturing at _all this_ if they weren't tucked in between their chests.

Neither of them said anything else. And they stayed like that for what felt to Gamora like an eternity, their arms and hands clutched between them to stay warm. For now. She listened to Peter breathe, held her ear to his neck and focused on the thrum of his pulse. Until she felt his head start to droop against hers. She nudged him with her balled up hand, poking it into his ribs.

“Peter.”

“Mmm.”

“Peter, wake up.”

“M’wake.”

“No, you’re not.”

She was _not_ starting to panic. She was sure they had a little more time before the cold got to a point where--

The thin indicator tape on the side of Peter’s oxy-mask caught her eye as she turned up to look at his face. He was down to mostly recycled CO2.

“Shit, that’s our last one,” she whispered, pulling back a bit from Peter. His eyes opened at that, and he shivered.

“So thassit then?” Peter slurred.

“Hold your breath,” she ordered. He nodded once and she reached up to pull the oxy-mask from his face and over his head, releasing it to float away. Gamora’s fingers hovered over his earpiece.

She took a deep breath and pulled her own mask down, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck instead, and pulled him toward her. She kissed him, deeply. Crushingly. As she realized her eyes were burning, she only pulled harder, satisfied to feel Peter’s hands snaking around her waist under the blanket, doing the same, desperately clutching at her as if they could give each other air and warmth by osmosis or by somehow occupying the same space at the same time.

It was _not_ a goodbye. It was _not._ They were _not_ both thinking that it was the last--

Peter’s chest jerked, but he stubbornly refused to release her. Gamora steeled herself and broke away, looked into his heavy eyes for just a heartbeat, then reached up and touched his earpiece. His combat mask materialized and she heard him take a deep breath, relaxing against her.

She checked her own mask--the indicator showed she had a few more minutes of clean air--then adjusted it and replaced it over her face.

Gamora did the math. The fact that they’d managed to restore pressurization after the hull breach meant that they wouldn’t flash-freeze, but no power meant no environmental controls. She’d be warm enough in the space suit, but it was meant for emergencies… she’d have only about three hours of air, but at least it was insulated. She could probably stretch her survival by another hour, by shutting down most of her biological functions and letting her mods take over.

Peter had more air-- his mask’s microprocessors could produce just enough to live on from the the gas and vapor of his own exhalations and its reserve canister of super-compressed O2. He could make it for hours more before suffocating… but he would freeze long before that.

And once she activated the spacesuit, it couldn’t be removed until either it detected atmosphere again, it died, or she did…

“We have to share it,” she decided, finally.

“What?” Peter answered, still a little drowsy.

“The suit.”

He shook his head. “It’ll only register one person, and reject a second when it activates. I’ve… _thought_ of tha--”

“We have to make it think there’s only one. It’s the only way, Peter. I know you know how this is going to play out if we do nothing.” Gamora pursed her lips and gripped his shoulder. He didn’t respond for a minute, and she tried to imagine the conflict in his expression behind the mask, but eventually he nodded slowly.

“If it doesn’t work, it’ll blow out the suit and we’re both screwed.”

Gamora nodded. “And even if it activates around us both, one wrong move afterward, and we can still blow it out from the higher strain.”

“Right, so bad plan. Not doing it.”  

“It is a bad plan, but it’s better than the alternative. We are doing it.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck, Gamora. I thought we weren’t doing this argument thing.”

“I never agreed to that.”

She imagined his eyes piercing through her from behind the red lenses. His hands wrapped around her wrists as she held the disc. “Gamora--”

“It gives us the most time, and the highest chance for both of us, Peter. Your mask has air, this has heat. You wear your mask; when the air in the suit starts to run out, maybe we can try to share it… if it doesn’t work, I’ll shut down and run off my mods. That’ll give us a little longer...” She shook her head at his tightening grip on her forearms. “You know I’m right. _It gives us both the most time_.”

“ _Or,_ it _kills_ us both.”

“You asked me not to make you watch me die from inside this thing. Don’t I deserve to make the same request?” She set her jaw and glared at him. “All or nothing. This is how we do it.”

“Okay. Fine,” he answered, eventually.

Slowly, and with effort, he pulled his arms away from his chest and haltingly started adjusting the blanket from around his shoulders to wrap around hers too, grabbing a couple corners behind her back, then reaching down to take the disc from her, as she hooked her ankles around his. She undid his jacket and curled her arms under the leather and around his ribs. Gamora tucked her chin snuggly under Peter’s, her face almost disappearing behind his lapels, trying to make her body as flush with his as she could.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” Gamora answered.

She felt him affix the suit to her back and push on it, activating the field.

The slight blue glow unfurled around both of them, a barely-there, but almost elastic resistance holding them together as it expanded a little larger than it was meant to. Gamora heard a huff through Peter’s mask, as he let out a breath he was holding. He tightened his arms around her back, while cautiously opening and closing his mittened hands, then rubbing his fingers along her jacket.

“You were right. This is so much better,” he breathed.

How had she not realized he’d stopped shaking before? Now, he was trembling, hard, their combined body heat inside the suit already raising the temperature. “Fuck.” He flexed his fingers again, and tried to dig his head into her shoulder, but--

Peter carefully pulled his right arm in, tight against their bodies trying not to stretch the suit, and slowly up to his face.

“Peter, stop--”

“Just-- shit--” he shuddered and sucked in a breath, and she held him tighter. “Just for a few minutes, okay?” His voice was strained, on the verge of cracking. She felt him fumble for his earpiece and his mask disappeared. He immediately wrenched his head further down, burrowing his nose into her hair.

“ _What_ is _wrong_?” she demanded, half between a whisper and a cry.

“Hurts,” he mumbled into her ear. “...Getting better though.”

He went rigid, as if to offer a counterargument, but then started to relax a little.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were so cold?” Gamora rubbed his back, realizing he must be getting feeling back into his extremities.

“Snuck up on me.”

Gamora willed back the heat growing in her face. He might not have lasted another hour… if she hadn’t…

His chest was warm, at least. She slipped into a rhythm, her hands sliding over the t-shirt on his back; the tops of her fingers dragged against the lining of his jacket, back and forth with his heartbeat. She rubbed until her own fingertips went numb and Peter finally stopped shivering, his breaths slow and even, shirt actually dampening slightly with sweat.

“Tired,” he managed to mumble.

“Sleep.”

Gamora backed away from him as much as she dared, and reactivated his mask, then tucked back in, letting his head fall back beside hers, leaving her hand to hold him steady.

“I will too,” she whispered, wholly abandoning the idea of sharing the mask. She decided… He needed to remain stable.

She took a long, deep breath of the suit-generated air, then closed her eyes and focused on slowing her biological systems and handing over respiration and circulation to her mods. Usually, it was an automatic survival function… maybe, she hoped, manual activation would be even more effective.

Gamora was betting both their lives on it.

 

* * *

 

The _Milano_ was dead in the water.

If not for the one spot of heat coming up on the _Quadrant’s_ sensors, Rocket would have thought it totally reasonable to call it a lifeless derelict. In another lifetime, he would have had a field day scrapping it.

As it was--

_“Clamps’r locked.”_

Rocket nodded curtly at Kraglin’s voice over his comm before responding. “Let me know when the pressure’s equalized and atmo’s normal.”

_“You got it.”_

Rocket opened the airlock and started climbing up into the pressure chamber, closing the lower hatch, and keying the control pad to lock it before opening the upper hatch and continuing up into the M-Ship.

The climb started getting real easy.

“Good call using the airlock instead of the hangar. Lost gravity, too.”

_“Figured.”_

Rocket made a mental note to prep an umbilical later to restore power. Wouldn’t be able to move to the hangar and start repairs, without the computer. And gravity. Gravity would be helpful. He always got frickin’ nauseous in zero-g.

He slapped on a space suit, then opened the inner hatch and floated into the main crew compartment, pushing up and away from the slight gravity produced by the _Quadrant’s_ larger mass and gyros. There was a dim yellow glow to the aft.

“Quill? Gamora?” He said. It wasn’t loud, but seemed to echo off the bulkheads.

 _“I am Groot?”_ Groot asked over the comm, concerned.

“Hang on, I’m lookin’.”

Rocket pushed around the corner past his workshop and Quill’s room and into the main living space. The yellow containment field caught his eye first, then Quill and Gamora, bundled up and floating in a barely-there, blue, shimmery cocoon. They were sharing the flarkin’ suit. Shit. How long…

“How’s my atmo, Krags?”

“78 percent.”

He coasted over to them, looking for the generator disc and finding it on Gamora’s back. He tapped it. “Guys?” he said. “Quill?”

From this angle, Rocket could see Peter’s masked face, half covered by Gamora’s loose, floating hair. But he couldn’t tell if--

“Rocket?”

He grinned. The voice was quiet and groggy, but there.

“Yeah, Quill. Have ya’ outta there in a minute.” Just had to wait for enough atmosphere to trigger the suit release.

Rocket’s suit released first, and he reactively shivered at the cold bite. When Quill’s suit shut off, he didn’t move at first, then deactivated his mask and looked down at Gamora. Rocket eyed them warily.

“Is she--”

Peter put his hand up to her face and pulled her floating hair away from her eyes and held it back by threading his fingers through it behind her ear.

“Gamora. Hey.”  He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “ _Gamora_.” Peter leaned close to her face, putting his cheek up to her mouth, and very visibly wilting with relief at feeling her breathe. He kissed her forehead. “Come on, baby,” he mumbled.

“Quill, it’s freezing in here. Let’s get you guys out, okay?”

Peter nodded slowly and started looking around for something to push off of, then grabbed the large screen they used for mission planning with one hand. With his other, he held Gamora around the shoulders.

“Peter?”

He looked down at her open eyes with a smile he just couldn’t help. “Hey,” he answered softly, catching the bulkhead with one foot. Peter turned to Rocket coming up behind him. “Thanks, man,” he said softly. Rocket nodded.

“Yeah,” he answered simply, before pushing past them and dropping down into the airlock tube.

“It’s cold.”

Peter shivered a little himself and looked at Gamora. If _she_ was cold, her mods must be just about at their limit.

“We can take care of that,” Peter answered, gently.  


**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat inspired by one of my favorite "Firefly" episodes, "Out of Gas." Which is classic. 
> 
> Also trope-y as hell... but, hopefully kinda fun to read. So thanks for doing so! 
> 
> I will likely not be making an entry for tomorrow's "Gifts" prompt. If work cuts me a break, I may manage something short for completion's sake... but I make no promises, unfortunately. *cries* Why can't writing fic be a JOB... 
> 
> Thank you for your beautiful feedback on yesterday's story! I will be responding, I promise. My week has spiraled... eep.


End file.
